Customer Reviews

The Smell of Apples: A Novel

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2 star:		(1)
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The mark of a good book is that it comes back to haunt you after you've finished reading it. Subtle yet shocking, THE SMELL OF APPLES left me feeling both outraged and sad. Behr skillfully weaves his plot so that it isn't until the very end that the full irony and horror of the book's title become clear to you. It's hard to believe this is the author's first novel. I can't wait for his next one

Mark Behr's novel, The Smell of Apples, is a beautifully written look at the world of an eleven year old Afrikaaner child in 1970's South Africa. It is history writ small. The horrors and corruption of a society under the heel of apartheid are shown effectively in this story of one family. It is a coming of age story that is both personal to the child and emblematic of the society around that child.

This novel is excellant at showing an historical period in a way that a book of history never could. Mark Behr makes the society feel real, and is all the more chilling for having done so. It is the small quiet moments that truly are the most shocking and that is how it should be. An excellant novel about a time and place of which more people should be aware.

Apartheid as seen by a child is an interesting theme. You get to see a little of how the system worked, how hatred was bred and looking away was encouraged. The book shows a child losing its innocence. Marnus is not an exceptional child and not particularly likeable. He is just a ten year old, egocentric, insecure, worshipping his father, arguing with his sister. He feels love, hatred, friendship and compassion. The boy's confusion at seeing his hero father being very very wrong is very realistic and heartbreaking.

I like the theme, the characters and the style. But the story and the dramatic plot line were not as good as they could have been. I was annoyed with the Angolan war intermezzo's. I felt I hardly had gotten to know the boy and was not ready to be dragged into the boy's future. I also wasn't finished with the story when the book was. It ended rather abruptly without warning. Maybe my expectations were wrong, having read 'Embrace' and liked that a lot. In 'Embrace' the story of a boy coming of age is much better developed. I missed that here.

It's nice not to be hit over the head with the obvious for a change. Behr's prose lets you in on the truth one layer at a time. Like the unfolding history of a child's life. The deeper roots of apartheid are uncovered in an unforgetable and lyric way. This book shows how fiction can have real impact. "For Whom The Bell Tolls" comes to mind

"Open eyes are the gateways to an open mind," writes Marnus Erasmus, the narrator of The Smell of Apples, in a school essay. Yet through Mark Behr's gripping first novel, 11-year-old Marnus comes to realize he has been blindfolded by his father and by his fatherland, and struggles to peek through the blindfold yet remain within its safety. The main text of the book is set in Simonstown in the early 1970s. Marnus, the son of SA's youngest-ever major general and his wife, a former opera singer turned frustrated housewife, frolics in white upper-class bliss at the close of the school year, fishing, swimming, and bicycling with his best friend, Frikkie. A Chilean general who was involved with the overthrow of Allende comes to stay with the Erasmus family for a week. The week marks a watershed of Marnus' life, a time in which his naïveté and blind acceptance are attacked from all sides, leaving him with a stronger and stronger sense of rot. What is captivating about this richly-layered novel is that the innocence of its young narrator, Marnus Erasmus, allows the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. Marnus tells his story as it happens, in the present tense. Young Marnus's simple observations and anecdotes, parroting the views of his closed-minded Afrikaner parents, point out both his impressionability and his independence, and the falsehoods to which he is exposed. A trip to the National Museum prompts his best friend, Frikkie Delport, to tell Marnus that Frikkie's "oupagrootjie used to get hunters to hunt the Bushmen on his farm in the Cedarburg. The hunters from Cape Town could come and they had to pay twenty pounds for each Bushman they shot... When we learned about the Bushmen in history class, Frikkie told the story of his oupagrootjie. Miss Engelbrecht said it wasn't true. It wasn't the Boers that killed off all the Bushmen, it was the Xhosas. She said the Xhosas are a terrible nation and that it was them that used to rob and terrorise the farmers on the Eastern frontier, long before the Zulus in Natal so cruelly murdered Boer women and little children." As the school year ends, Ilse, Marnus' 16-year-old sister, begins to voice her disillusionment and disgust for their falsely idyllic world, even as it rewards her with a trip overseas and the honor of being Head Girl. Ilse and Marnus' beloved Tannie Karla is cast out of the family for her liberal views, and emigrates to England. The son of Doreen, the family's "Coloured" maid, is tortured by whites, a cruelty Marnus can hardly fathom. When Mrs. Erasmus and her children go to visit Doreen's son i n hospital, the mother cannot give Doreen's surname, despite the many years she has worked for the family. "Then Ilse says: `It's Malan," to which Marnus replies "I never knew there were also Coloured Malans, and I wonder how Ilse knew what Doreen's surname is." Marnus' blithe observations hint at the moral decay within his parents' marriage. The dreadful climax comes when Marnus, peeking through a hole in the knotty pine floor of his bedroom, witnesses his father rape Frikkie. Interwoven with the young Marnus' narration is the narration of Marnus fifteen years later, as a SA Army Lieutenant in Angola, both running from and embracing his own imminent death. These passages allow us to see where Marnus has gone and what he ha s become. Still longing for the security and familiarity of home, yet increasingly cynical, he tries to make sense of his choice to follow his parents' example despite its obvious flaws. Mark Behr's debut novel is a highly readable, chilling tale of deceit, fear, and decay. Reviewed August 1996 by Catherine Harbour, Assistant Editor, JULUKA Newsletter

This book centers on Marnus, who's living in South Africa in the 1970s. His father is an Afrikaaner general, and Marnus parrots his family's beliefs on race, religion, and class, until a visit from a Chilean general to his family's house for a week forces Marnus to several realizations about his country, his family, and himself. By telling the story from Marnus's young viewpoint, Behr creates a fascinating portrait of apartheid in South Africa, and of the reality of whites there who are blind to their own cruelties. The reader is drawn into making her/his own decisions about the various hypocritical statements. This story is ultimately about the loss of innocence. Behr also weaves flashforwards about Marnus fighting in the Angolan war in the early 1980s, showing us the future effects. A searing and vivid story that brings the reader further and further in until it's impossible to leave without knowing how it ends.

"Memorable for the eye-opening authenticity with which Behr catches the Afrikaner mentality at home ... Behr's novel offers a disturbing confirmation that sincere and kindly people can still be the walking representation of evil" (Sunday Times)

Mark Behr's first time novel "The Smell of Apples" won the prestigious CNA Literary Debut Award and the Eugene Marais Prize. It was a wordlwide success, because it contains one of the most expelling themes in South Africa of the last 30 years.

Behr tells the story through the eyes of the 11-year old Marnus Erasmus who lives with his sister and parents in Cape Town of 1973.Behr links many aspects throughout the story so that the reader gets to know about Marnus's story of initiation, the apartheid system, the sexual mischiefs of his parents and Marnus being a 26-year old soldier in the Angolan Civil War.
But mainly the reader is led through the week of Marnus's life becoming more smart and grown up.He and his sister Ilse especially try to behave like adults when a Chilean general visits the family. This so called Mr.Smith has a symbolic function in the novel, because he is the one(the snake)who steels the apples out the families Garden of Eden.

All in all the novel by Mark Behr is a good introduction for readers who want to inform theirselves and who are interested in the apartheid system and the life of blacks and whites in this period of time.

After Mark Behr has earned good international critics from papers like the "Financial Time", "The Independent", and "The Times", I decided to get an personal impression of his first novel "The Smell of Apples" and to read this highly praised book.
As the book only got best critics, I started to read with high expectations - and they were fulfilled.
The author suceeds in presenting different aspects in only one book. As a reader you gain a deep insight into South African society, as into the Angolan War. Besides that, the author also reveals a story of initiation, which describes the development of Marnus Erasmus from child to adult.

The book contains two time-levels. In the first one 12-year-old Marnus describes events which happened in December 1973 and which influence his later development from child to adult.
This time-level gives the reader a detailed insight into South African society where blacks are still discriminated against. At first sight the Erasmus family seems to be a harmonious family, but during the development of the story, the reader realizes that this is not the case. Especially Marnus's father is not such an ideal as the reader is made to believe in the beginning. Outwardly he is a succesful and honourable general who fights for his ideals, but at a closer look he reveals perversion and cruelty.
In addition to that, the reader notices how condescendingly the family behave towards blacks and how blacks in general are regarded by whites in South Africa.
The second time-level deals with 26-year-old Marnus who fights in the Angolan War for South African troups. This sub-plot shows to what extent Marnus's childhood and especially the events in December 1973 influenced his later development and his behaviour in war.
Although his father has revealed his face of evil to him when he was young, the reader realizes that he is still Marnus's idol. Moreover, the second time-level deals with the cruelty of war, with Apartheid and racism.

The Smell of Apples is a very interesting book. The reader gains a general idea of different aspects. After reading only a few pages, he is interested in the development. The Smell of Apples is not only a book for those who are interested in Apartheid and South African history. Once you have started to read, you cannot stop.

Mark Behr's novel "The Smell Of Apples" is in many ways an amazing and remarkable story about a young boy named Marnus Erasmus living with his typical Afrikaner upper-class family near the ocean on the coast of South Africa.
What is most striking about this story ist that most of the horrible incidents and tragedies within the Erasmus family are somehow hidden beneath the surface of harmonious normal life.
Again and again Behr implies the racism an militarism Marnus Erasmus has to face every day. He is raised by parents who love their children as long as they do what is expected from them. Marnus's life is limited to the views and so-called virtues he is taught especially by his father, a high-ranked South African army officer.
The relationship between father an son changes throughout the whole book that tells us a so-called "story of initiation".
Marnus experiences things like the struggle between his mother and his sister, the homosexuality of his father and maybe even his mother's affair with a Chilean general. The facade of his former life starts to crumble. Behr describes it with a wonderful sense fo details and little symbols that imply certain facts and plots.
But what is best about his book is its ending. Marnus still does not manage to turn away from his father. His fear and respect are deeper rooted than his common sense and need to be outraged. He obeys his father even after he saw him raping his best friend Frikkie.
The real tragedy is that just until his death in the Angolan civil war Marnus is not able to forget all the prejudices he was told about the black majority of the Apartheid state South Africa. The short interludes of Marnus fighting in this war as an officer are placed between the different parts that tell us his childhood. Behr connects these two levels of time so masterly that the reader almost feels how strong the influence of his father was and how much his parents are responsible for what happens to their son. Although Marnus appreciates some of the black soldiers in Angola his last words are "For in life there is no escape from history".
Marnus Erasmus and thousands of others of his generation were wasted, indoctrinated from the day of their birth and raised by hyppocrite parents causing psychic wounds Truth&Reconciliation will probably never heal properly.

I only gave this book two stars cause it's written by a friend of a friend. but... for one thing I'm not even sure what happened in the book. (spoiler) is Dad supposed to be a ... lover of the Chilean general/child molester??!? That seems to be what's vaguely and senselessly implied. And I mean, ok, he's a hypocrite, Dad is, then. I'm sorry I didn't get this book at all. And the style and the conceit of this little boy who just accepts everything Daddy says without question.... I found a really tough "buy"...